Just a gravel pit??? Day and night

[Jürgen Gebhart]

I want to introduce you a gravel pit close to my home, 8 min. with the Bike, but I drove mostly by car!
On the top of the west side of the pit lives a small Population o Lacerta agilis.

On the east side is a Lake that is own by a fischerman`s club and there are some fish in the lake.
On the north side is a pool, I call it the Pelophylax kingdom, that`s the place where Pelophylax occur in the pit. (you see the lake in the back)

Normally this is the Bufo bufo, Rana temporaria and Rana dalmatina breeding pool, but this year all went bad.
They start with breeding in the end of March, I found one Toad spawn and a lot of Rana spawn everything looks good. But in the middle of April (I was freezing in Tuscany and the Provence and could not help them) we got the hottest April since more than 120 years, the water was gone and all Spawn get grilled.
Since May some times water is in the puddles, but most of the time not.
Bufo bufo with dead Rana temporaria (from a better time, with more water!)

Rana temporaria

I was there on Saturday and there was no water in the puddles around, only in Pelo-kingdom of course.
On Sunday we get a heavy thunderstorm with a lot of rain and I decided in the evening to go out to the pit.
At 9.15 p. m. I was there, it was much too early, I hear the Pelophylax calling and from time to time and some Hyla arborea in the bushes.
Than it`s getting darker and to my surprise I found the Pelophylax far away from there pool hunting around in the puddles. I don`t expect that, I thought the will live always and for ever in the pool!!!

At next I found a Hyla near a puddle.

Hyla puddle at daytime.

And that`s what I found on Monday. Hyla spawn

You know what that is???

This is the highlight of my pit and the reason why I was there at night!!

Bufo (Epidalea) calamita

I heared two males calling, they start at 10.05 p. m.

And this is the breeding puddle of Bufo (Epidalea) calamita

Three weeks ago I found the last Calamita spawn inside this puddle, two days later it was dry!

Also I found this year Mesotrition alpestris and Lisotriton vulgaris there.
All in all seven Amphibian species and one Reptil species.
Not bad for just a Gravel pit!!!

[Mario Schweiger]

Hello Jürgen,

thanks for this very good written report and the excellent pictures!
It shows, you must not go down to Croatia, or Tuscany and Provence (and freeze), you may find a lot too "around your house" here in Central Europe.

Mario

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Thank you Mario!

Yes, you are right, sometimes we forget what we have in front of our Door!!!

[Liam Russell]

These mineral extraction sites can be great for amphibians - even when they are still active. I have worked on this one and it has good sized populations of Bufo bufo, Lissotriton vulgaris and Triturus cristatus. It also has Lissotriton helveticus and Rana temporaria. FIve out of six species for Britain - not bad at all.

A lot of the great crested newts are very pale in colour, this has been seen in other sandy sites, maybe some form of selection for camouflage.

Here are a couple of creatures from the site

[Ilian Velikov]

Great photos and very nice report! I love the R.temporaria portrait!

The tiny thing you ask for is a Bufo bufo toadlet! I found one, too just a couple of days ago:

Best regards
Ilian

[Jürgen Gebhart]

Thank you Ilian!
I not sure that this is a Bufo bufo, because I found just one toad spawn in the puddles and this one get killed by the sun.
No puddles have longer water than 3 weeks!
The lake is not a breeding place for amphibians, because there are a lot of fish inside!
I think it is a calamita!

[Ilian Velikov]

Not sure but doesn't look like a B.calamita to me...they have the lighter stripe on the back even at that age and this one doesn't have it!..Also my Bufo bufo toadlet was found far away from the nearest pool near a road throught the woods, so may be your toadlet didn't hatced there but came from somewhere else!

P.S. Lately I also have found some P.ridibundus unexpectedly away from water!..It looks like they forage further inland than we thought!

[Jürgen Gebhart]

The next pond is 300 Meters away, a world trip for a little toad like this and there are also fish inside.
I found not just one, there were more than 30!I have no idea where they came from!!!

I think you are right now, I check my calmaita baby pcis from last year again, and they look very different!!!

09.05.2008

09.05.2008.jpg

29.08.2008

29.08.2008.jpg

[Ilian Velikov]

I found this toadlet more than a kilometer away from the pond where I know Bufo bufo breed!..Ther's a small creek near by but it's in the shadows of the forest..no sunshine at all,the water is very cold and fast running and I doubt that toads breed there(although it's not imposibble ), so it may have traveled far away from the place it hatched!
...Around the pond I'm talking about (where toads breed) I've seen not more than 30 but more than a hundred at a time hopping close to the shores...unfortunately this year I didn't witness the same event!..This year the toads are much less than usual! I wonder why?...Maybe the weather tricked them! ..The pond also has fish..and I don't think it's that much of a problem for frogs and toads to breed there because there are hundreds of individuals which lay millions of eggs and no matter how much fish eats, there will be a lot of them which will survive!

Best regards
Ilian